You drove by her every once in a while, maybe on the way to Bristol Motor Speedway, and each time she looked a little more timeworn, more lost to the ages.
Yes, the grandstands were still there, rising among the Blue Ridge foothills in Wilkes County, N.C., but it seemed like that was more because nobody could be bothered to tear them down, letting nature do the work instead. Rolls of hay sat in the infield where cars were once prepared for the best stock-car drivers NASCAR could produce.
Weeds grew through cracks in the pavement and retaining walls. Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 faded on the scoreboard that still marked the results of the last NASCAR Cup Series race in 1996. A brief revival hadn’t lasted, and it seemed like only a matter of time until all that remained of North Wilkesboro Speedway, once a twice-a-year Cup stop, crumbled back into the dirt for good.
Read all of Frontstretch‘s content looking back on 2023 here
Until the day when North Wilkesboro rose from the ashes, reborn, a phoenix reawakening in small town America.
This one was for the fans.
If the 2020 pandemic had a positive, this might have been it. The track had been scanned for iRacing a few months before, thanks in large part to the mostly retired Dale Earnhardt Jr. Earnhardt had watched his father race at North Wilkesboro, but had missed the chance to run a Cup car there himself, one of several long careers that came and went without a lap on the old track. Earnhardt was adamant that the track be scanned to preserve the original layout, which ran slightly uphill on the backstretch and back down on the front.
Then, when NASCAR ground to a halt in spring 2020 and turned to virtual racing to give the fans something, an opportunity arose: North Wilkesboro might be decaying, but the virtual version was alive and well — and now, NASCAR’s biggest stars could get a taste of racing there.
That virtual race may have provided a spark — a generation of fans had never seen a race at the track and many had been clamoring for more short tracks.
Still, it seemed as though the time was past for the old track. Speedway Motorsports had bought the place to close it down, to give a race to the then-new Texas Motor Speedway. And if the owners had no interest in the track, what hope was there?
When Speedway Motorsports patriarch Bruton Smith died, his son Marcus took the reins. And in a guest stint on Earnhardt’s podcast, he said words fans had longed to hear: “We haven’t forgotten about North Wilkesboro.”
Earnhardt was almost speechless. Could it really happen? Was there a glimmer of hope after all these years?
When racing was included as a vital part of pandemic recovery for North Carolina, North Wilkesboro suddenly had a fighting chance. Smith shared a new vision for the track, with racing a part of its future. The Cup Series wasn’t included in that initial plan, but a groundswell among fans changed that plan.
And in fall 2022, the impossible dream became reality. Smith and NASCAR announced that the 2023 All-Star Race would be held not at Charlotte or Texas, but at North Wilkesboro — on the same surface that the cars had roared along all those years ago.
A charitable effort during which fans could purchase a chance to buy tickets for the race weekend, which also included the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, sold out in a matter of hours.
And so, on a weekend in May, the fans returned to Wilkes County. The midway looked like it did in NASCAR’s boom years, and bodies packed the grandstand. Campers filled the surrounding fields and the night air was filled with the raucous sounds of race fans forgetting reality for a few days.
It was good for the track, and it was good for NASCAR. In its 75th season, NASCAR returned home. Fans who had felt alienated felt seen again. Fans who had not yet been born when the track went silent saw the place their parents and grandparents spoke of in stories.
It provided the optics NASCAR needed: packed grandstands, fans excited about a race weekend for months in advance. The sport needed anticipation and excitement heading into broadcast negotiations, and a little racetrack in the green hills gave it to them.
Racing had returned to Wilkes County. Kyle Larson won the race, which wasn’t perfect even though the moment was. He rode the lift to the rooftop victory lane with a Hendrick Chevrolet, just as Gordon had on that last day 27 years before. Larson’s No. 5 hung on the same hand-operated scoreboard as Gordon’s had — and by the same hands.
After a successful season of racing after a comeback which might have been both the feel-good story of 2023 and the most improbable, North Wilkesboro sits quiet, wearing a fresh coat of asphalt. Waiting.
Waiting for next year.
About the author
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.
Good article for sure